In the first weeks after Apple Vision Pro reached buyers, a small corner of the gaming world is testing what this new kind of machine can hold. Resolution Games, through its founder Tommy Palm, has built Game Room, a shared table of familiar games in which several people sit together in a single room without controllers, and the effort reveals how much of the spatial future must still be invented by hand. Around it, emulators, a new engine toolkit, and a thin list of available titles suggest a platform still searching for its first real community of play. Whether that search becomes a lasting
Game Room's Developer on Apple Vision Pro: 'Nothing Like This Has Ever Really Been Done Before'
In the first weeks after Apple Vision Pro reached buyers, a small corner of the gaming world is testing what this new kind of machine can hold. Resolution Games, through its founder Tommy Palm, has built Game Room, a shared table of familiar games in which several people sit together in a single room without controllers, and the effort reveals how much of the spatial future must still be invented by hand. Around it, emulators, a new engine toolkit, and a thin list of available titles suggest a platform still searching for its first real community of play. Whether that search becomes a lasting habit depends on the developers who choose to stay.
A few weeks after Apple Vision Pro reached its first buyers, developers are already pushing the headset into unexpected corners. iMore's new Pips and Pixels column, written by gaming editor James Bentley, looked at the earliest efforts, starting with an interview with Tommy Palm, founder of Resolution Games, the studio behind Game Room.
Game Room gathers classic board and card games such as Chess, Solitaire, Hearts, Yacht and Sea Battle. Palm describes it as a way for people to sit together and play familiar games, with touches like animated pieces that only a digital space allows. He is candid that the project was hard: several users share one space without controllers, and nothing quite like it had been done, so the team had to invent new standards for shared 3D interfaces. Building in Apple's native tools was new territory, but Palm found them approachable.
The studio's Demeo, a D&D-style game, already runs on Vision Pro through its iPad version, though its fully immersive edition needs more time. Resolution is also working on an undisclosed project and what Palm calls the first officially licensed Dungeons & Dragons game built exclusively for VR, made with Wizards of the Coast.
The wider week brought more signs of change. GBA4vOS lets users play Game Boy games on the headset, either with a life-sized virtual console or with pinch controls for gyro-based titles. Unity added official Vision Pro support, which should make porting games easier. Bentley notes that the M2 and R1 chips can handle VR, but the platform needs developer backing, and the absence of Netflix and Spotify is a worrying sign. The question now is whether that backing arrives.
A few weeks after Apple Vision Pro reached buyers, developers are already pushing it into odd corners, and iMore's new Pips and Pixels column, written by gaming editor James Bentley, took stock. The headline item is an interview with Tommy Palm, CEO and founder of Resolution Games, the studio behind Game Room, one of the first spatial games built for the headset.
Game Room is a collection of classic board and card games. At launch it includes Chess, Solitaire, Hearts, Yacht and Sea Battle. It is designed natively for Vision Pro and also runs on iPhone and iPad. Palm says the aim was to let people come together and play familiar games, some with touches like animated pieces that only a digital space allows. He describes chess, cards and dice as friendly social activities that span generations. He says the studio is very pleased with the launch, on Vision Pro and on iOS.
Palm is candid about what made the project hard. Game Room puts multiple users in the same space, all playing without controllers. In his words, nothing like it has really been done before. That meant inventing solutions, including new interface standards for 3D interfaces shared by several people. The team built the game from scratch in Apple's native technologies, and Palm says tools such as RealityKit and Reality Composer Pro were new to them but easy enough to start building with.
The studio's other Apple project is Demeo, its D&D-like VR game. The iPad version already runs on Vision Pro, with direct and indirect input gestures and full gamepad support. A fully immersive version is still in the works, but Palm says the team needs more time and will share updates later. Several of the studio's other games also run through their iOS versions. Dedicated visionOS ports of older titles are possible, he says, when they make financial sense.
Resolution Games has three titles in progress for the headset: Game Room, Demeo and an undisclosed project. Behind those, the studio is working on what Palm calls the world's first officially licensed Dungeons & Dragons game built exclusively for VR, in collaboration with Wizards of the Coast, along with updates to existing titles such as Racket Club, which launched in December.
The column places this in a wider week of Vision Pro news. GBA4vOS now lets people play Game Boy games on the headset, either with a life-sized virtual Game Boy whose buttons are pressed by hand, or with pinch controls that rotate the screen for gyro games like WarioWare: Twisted. Unity has also added official support for Vision Pro development, which should make porting games easier. Bentley notes the headset's M2 and R1 chips can handle VR titles, but it needs developer backing, and the absence of apps from companies like Netflix and Spotify may be a worrying sign.
Apple has stressed that Vision Pro is neither a VR nor an AR headset but a spatial one, where users place virtual screens and objects in their room and the headset remembers them. Bentley argues that even though it was not necessarily designed for games, the gaming potential is surprising.
The column also covers other Apple gaming news. Death Stranding has reached iPhone, though its performance trails typical console experiences. Ultros launched natively on Mac to positive reviews. A February release calendar lists most big titles as not natively playable on Apple devices. What to watch next is whether Unity support and developer commitment translate into more spatial games, and when Demeo's full immersive version finally arrives.
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